Audio: New U.S. ambassador to the UN won’t say Syria strike is legal

posted at 3:21 pm on September 9, 2013 by Allahpundit

An important catch via the Standard from foreign-policy genius Samantha Power, who wondered aloud on Friday why Iran isn’t burning with shame that their boy Assad gassed Syrians. (The White House’s “smart power” braintrust has convinced itself that because Saddam used gas against Iran in the 1980s, Iranian leaders might object for moral reasons to using it against their Sunni enemies today.) The key bit starts at the beginning of the clip and runs for about two minutes.

What makes this important isn’t that she’s endorsing an attack which she seems to think is illegal; we crossed that Rubicon long ago with O, who ordered an attack on Libya that his own lawyers thought was legally dubious. What makes it important, and what may end up becoming the enduring precedent from this goony fiasco, is that the lefty establishment has dropped any pretense that the endorsement of the UN Security Council is some essential prerequisite to war. Here’s Power:

“Nobody has tried harder than this administration to work through the security council over two and a half years. As you’re well aware of, of course, even modest humanitarian and political measures have been rejected by Russia in New York. We’ve had three vetoes put forward–three resolutions put forward, all of which have been vetoed by Russia. And on chemical weapons, specifically, and perhaps most heart breakingly, even on the day of August 21, when those ghastly images were broadcast all around the world, we couldn’t even get a press release out of the security council condemning generically use of chemical weapons.”

Turns out the UN isn’t a hivemind collectively determining what’s in the world’s best interest, as the left sometimes pretends when a Republican president needs thwarting (part of the “global test,” as a wise man once called it), it’s merely a lever for its constituents to protect their own selfish national interests. Presidents have ignored it before, of course, but as the NYT notes today, typically they claim national self-defense when doing so. What’s unique about O’s Syria adventure is that he and his staff not only aren’t claiming that, they’re claiming that a unilateral strike can qualify as legal under international law even if the UN hasn’t signed off:

On another level, the proposed strike is unlike anything that has come before — an attack inside the territory of a sovereign country, without its consent, without a self-defense rationale and without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council or even the participation of a multilateral treaty alliance like NATO, and for the purpose of punishing an alleged war crime that has already occurred rather than preventing an imminent disaster…

[Former OLC chief Jack] Goldsmith said that in the Kosovo campaign, the Clinton administration shied away from arguing that it was consistent with international law to carry out a military attack not authorized by the Security Council purely for humanitarian reasons. Its fear was that such a doctrine could be misused by other nations, loosening constraints on war…

[White House counsel Kathryn] Ruemmler said that while an attack on Syria “may not fit under a traditionally recognized legal basis under international law,” the administration believed that given the novel factors and circumstances, such an action would nevertheless be “justified and legitimate under international law” and so not prohibited.

It’s perfectly legal to ignore the UN and attack, even if it’s not in self-defense, if you have a good enough reason. Samantha Power’s obviously reluctant to make that argument, which makes sense: What sort of ambassador to the UN would want to emphasize that the UN’s sanction isn’t important anymore? But the rest of the White House evidently has no problem with it, and Power herself seems unconcerned about the finer legal points vis-a-vis the alleged moral cause of avenging gassed Syrians. You can imagine how this standard will play in the years ahead. The next time a president wants to ignore the Security Council, he’ll simply emphasize the humanitarian component of the mission (there’s always a humanitarian component) and some sort of international “norm” that needs enforcing. O’s logic towards Assad would have applied even more robustly to attacking Saddam over the Security Council’s objections, after all. No wonder Ban Ki-Moon sounds nervous.

Because more unilateralism in the future is now likely, if not inevitable, you’re going to see two forms of pushback from internationalists (which includes the American left once the GOP is back in the White House). One: Instead of insisting that Security Council approval is key, they’ll begin to insist that the approval of western members of the Security Council is the touchstone for action. Russia and China are hopeless but there needs to remain some sort of “global test” the next time a Republican cowboy leads the war charge. If Britain and France say no, then it’s a no. Two: They’ll push harder to expand the permanent membership of the Security Council, something that’s been talked about for ages but will gain new urgency now. Add India, Brazil, and a few other rising powers and you’ll restore some legitimacy to the Council at least insofar as being able to say that it’s more representative of global interests. But of course, that would only make it harder to get approval for military strikes; the more nations you add, the more likely it is that one of them will have a national interest with which western military action conflicts. The only way out of that is to rescind the right of permanent members to unilaterally veto international action and move to a simple majority Council vote instead, but I doubt any current member will go for that (including the U.S., which uses its veto to protect Israel from its enemies). All that’s left is more stalemate, which means the pressure to act unilaterally will become even greater. That’s where we’re headed, I think.

The horrifying pictures of dead children being used by the Obama administration to justify an attack on Syria, with the claim that the Assad regime carried out the chemical attacks that killed those children, while emotionally heartbreaking, do not tell the story of those children and do not tell you the main point the Obama administration is trying to coverup.

Those children were kidnapped over a week earlier, before they were slaughtered……. by the Obama backed Syrian rebels.

They told me if I voted for Romney, Detroit would go bankrupt, the United States would involve itself in another ‘military kinetic action’ in the Middle East, and we’d have a war criminal as President.

Samantha Power is a left wing progressive version of John McCain. She too wants to save the world even if that means waging unending wars to promote “Social Justice”.

She was the one who one advocated the U.S. put troops in Israel and Palestinian controlled areas to end the conflict and bring social justice and peace to all. She wanted to teach both sides a lesson! To me that is the very definition of insanity.

This from the same Administration hack who thought attending a comedy film festival in Dublin a couple weeks ago was far far more important than being at her post in the UN Security Council doing the job she was appointed to do.

Also the very same hack who planned that whole Libya event that brought joy, and happiness, calm and representative democracy to all the Libyans at a minor cost…the lives of four good and decent Americans.

And, the author of removing Mubarak no matter the cost and then helping to install the Moslem Brotherhood in Cairo.

Meanwhile Putin tells Assad to cooperate with chemicals, the UN and GB jump behind him, intantly…not one shot was fired, obama’s ego was further degraded, ahead of 6 interviews and his ‘big’ speech about nothing tomorrow…

Jeebus…what naive, sheltered FOOLS these people are, all of them. Have any of them ever left the academia bubble they live in, because wow, it’s like they’ve gathered in the faculty lounge to talk leftist, kumbaya theory.

As of 3:45 p.m., no arrests have been made and George Zimmerman is “no longer in investigative detention,” according to police, but is still at the home. Police are investigating the incident as a domestic battery.

Jeebus…what naive, sheltered FOOLS these people are, all of them. Have any of them ever left the academia bubble they live in, because wow, it’s like they’ve gathered in the faculty lounge to talk leftist, kumbaya theory.

Bishop on September 9, 2013 at 3:44 PM

Surely you jest…

They join the ____________ fill in the blank corps. to build windmills for po’ folks around the globe during sabbaticals…post their deep insights and photos on Facebook & Instagram and engage in meaningful policy discussions on Twitter.

The Social Media Administration.

Assad nailed that description in his interview this morning…I’ll give him that.

Because a country run by a bunch of nutters that want a nuclear weapons to ‘wipe Israel, a country of 6 million people, off of the map’ for starters is going to abandon its strategic partner in the region because he may have killed 1,600 of his own people with sarin gas.

Because, that was gonna happen. C’mon. From what planet do you hail, Sam?

‘…a new national poll indicates the president’s approval rating on foreign policy has hit an all-time low. And only three in ten approve of how he is handling Syria.

…

Only four in ten approve of the job Obama is doing on foreign policy, with 57% of those questioned giving the president a thumbs down. The 40% approval rating on foreign policy is Obama’s lowest level ever on that issue in CNN polling.

…

“President Obama’s approval rating on foreign affairs has continued its steady decline – from 54% in January to 49% in April, 44% in June, and just 40% now,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “This may be a troubling sign for a president who in past polls had always scored his highest ratings for his handling of foreign affairs.”

Specifically on Syria, only 31% of the public approves of the president’s policies and actions, with 63% giving him a thumbs down.

On Sept. 15, he calls Bush a simpleton who is “promising revenge in a crusade.”

“He will drop million-dollar bombs on 10 dollar houses in Kabul and bomb [them] back to the dirt age,” he says. “It’s agonizing having him as our leader, and I know the forces of darkness in his administration will turn this awful tragedy to their advantage.”